I should have been talking about Mistletoe near Christmas, since it's traditional for that time of year. Actually, if most of us knew where the tradition came from, we would probably never want the plant in our homes. It seems many different traditions concerning mistletoe all come from very pagan sources, including hanging it in houses and stables to ward off witches and evil spirits, and some traditions link it with fertility.

Nevertheless, mistletoe came to my attention on my walk the other day. Our area is covered by oak trees, and mistletoe is a common sight here. One can notice it in winter more easily because it stands out as "clumps" in the bare tree branches.

Here's a picture I took of one such tree.

Closer up, it looks like this:

As I was contemplating the mysteries of mistletoe, I noticed that it is only in the oak trees. There is none (nor have I ever seen any) in the pines around here. That got me curious and I went and looked up some information on mistletoe.

Mistletoe produces its own food, however, it needs a host plant for water and nutrients. It does not grow on dead trees. If you see mistletoe on pines and cedars and other such trees, it is not a true mistletoe, but what is called "dwarf mistletoe". 

Mistletoe is spread by birds (thus answering my question as to why all the mistletoe is in the tops of the trees) as they eat the berries and pass the seed within the berry which then lodges on a tree branch. Chemicals do not work well on eradicating mistletoe. It seems the only way to get rid of it is to cut off the infected branches, or if the whole tree is infected, by cutting down the tree.

Now, my story about mistletoe. At one time my daughter raised  Nubian dairy goats for a 4H project. She had two does that were due to "kid" very soon. One went into labor and soon after the second doe went into labor also. However, the second one stopped her labor and nothing could induce her to start again.

My dd called her 4H goat leader and her goat leader suggested giving the goat some mistletoe. Mistletoe, it seems, will cause a pregnant goat to go into labor--thus you need to clear any mistletoe from your goat pens and fields so that you don't have miscarriages. There's nothing that goats will not eat--and mistletoe happens to be one of their favoites if it is accessable.

So we went in search of mistletoe. It seems to be everywhere around us, except on our property. We drove down the road and spotted a nice clump of it in our neighbor's tree. Alas, it was too far out of our reach.We decided to look for a lower clump. Finally, on another road in someone's yard that we didn't even know, we found a clump we thought we could reach. But still, it was just slightly out of our reach. We jumped up, we threw branches and rocks at it to no avail.

Suddenly I noticed the owner of the tree coming toward us. Uh oh. What are they thinking of us? They must think we are crazy. I explained our situation and they kindly helped us get a few pieces of mistletoe knocked off to take home with us.

We arrived home. The goat was not interested in the mistletoe. In fact, it looked like she wasn't going to have her baby after all. Instead, a day or two later, in the middle of the night, in a rain storm, she finally decided to kid.  I'm not kidding! (Groan. I know. It was a bad joke.)